A portion of Albemarle Street east of Connecticut Avenue will close for two months while DC Water completes the final and “most difficult” phase of its two-year Soapstone Valley sewer rehabilitation project.
DC Water explained the remaining sewer work during a special ANC 3F meeting on Tuesday, June 4th.
Soapstone project manager Peter Tinubu said relining the final segment of sewer pipe, which runs from Albemarle to behind Park Van Ness, will first require removing the existing underground manhole structure near the intersection of Albemarle and 32nd Streets. The manhole dates back to 1908, and is too narrow to accommodate workers and equipment for the relining project and for future maintenance work.
“You can’t put equipment inside it. You can’t lower workers into it,” said Tinubu.
The manhole is on Albemarle near 32nd Street. (photo from DC Water’s June 4th presentation)
Excavating the manhole requires removing the original structure, brick by brick, and installing shoring materials to prevent a cave-in. This will create a temporary shaft that will be 16 feet wide and 45 feet deep. And it be a two-week, 24/7 operation.
The final six weeks of the street closure include relining the pipe (using the UV curing method), installing the new manhole structure (which will be two feet in diameter at the opening, and eight feet at the widest underground), and restoring the street surface. The work hours will be 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
The focus of the relining work is a 325-foot segment that flows into the park. “It’s in bad shape,” said Tinubu. “It’s cracking. The National Park Service is afraid it can break any time, and it will spill sewage into the park.”
Tinubu also said DC Water will be resolving another issue that came to light while it was investigating the manhole issues. The agency was expecting to find three pipes connected to the manhole. It found a fourth, from the Avalon apartment building at 4501 Connecticut Avenue. The pipe leads to a manhole near the Avalon’s parking garage entrance, and the building engineer told DC Water it is always backing up and flooding. DC Water, Tinubu said, will help the building fix the problem.
The surprise sewer pipe. DC Water’s Tinubu notes the bricks surrounding it are loose, which could have led to street stability problems in the future. (photo from DC Water’s June 4th presentation)
Before anything can happen, DC Water needs a permit from DDOT for the street closure. The ANC 3F commissioners present voted unanimously to approve a resolution supporting DC Water’s application. The resolution also states, and Tinubu affirmed, that DC Water has agreed to have a supervisor on-site throughout the operation.
Garbage and delivery trucks and staff serving the businesses at the southeast corner of Connecticut Avenue and Albemarle will have alley access. And the sidewalk on the north side of Albemarle Street will remain open.
Tinubu also said a sewer bypass pump will be in use during the two-week manhole excavation, and it will be covered with insulating materials to muffle the noise.
The start date will depend on when DDOT issues the permit. Then, Tinubu said, nearby homeowners, apartment buildings and businesses will be notified at least 72 hours before the work begins.
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Mitch Baer says
Good article. Size of shaft will be 8 feet not 16.
FHC says
Thanks, Mitch. We will edit the piece to clarify that the permanent manhole shaft will be 8 feet in diameter.
Soapstone Project Team says
For clarity, the proposed manhole is 8ft in diameter. The shaft to reconstruct the existing manhole is 16ft in diameter. (This is an OSHA requirement to provide a safe environment for the crew working on the structure.)
– Soapstone Project Team
Paul says
Exactly what streets will be closed? Albemarle from Connecticut Ave NW to 32d Street NW? Connecticut to 30th Street? How will traffic for residents of Albemarle on the closed section be handled? There is very heavy commuter traffic 30th Street to Albemarle — will this be rerouted with signage directing traffic from 30th onto Brandywine, toward Connecticut?
Green Eyeshades says
A person from DDOT attended the June 4 special meeting of ANC3F, but was unprepared and ill-informed. He had no slides to assist the commissioners in answering the very questions Paul asked. The DDOT person thought DDOT had already issued a permit to DC Water but DC Water said they did NOT have a permit from DDOT yet because they had “just applied” for the permit.
Commissioner Baer asked DDOT and DC Water to submit a copy of the permit application and, after some hemming and hawing, the two agencies agreed they would give the application for the permit to the ANC3F commissioners.
So far, there is no copy on ANC3F’s website of DC Water’s application to DDOT for a permit. The resolution adopted on June 4 requires DC Water to provide a copy of its application for the DDOT permit at the same time DC Water submits that application to DDOT.
Without quoting all of the details, stipulation five of the ANC3F resolution provides in part as follows: “A Traffic Control Plan will be in included in the permit application submitted by DC Water to DDOT …. [snip] The Traffic Control Plan be submitted to the ANC for a short review, as it is filed with DDOT. The permit application submitted to DDOT by DC Water will also be submitted to the ANC.”
The verb is missing in that second sentence between “Plan” and “be submitted,” in the original resolution posted on ANC3F’s website. The intent is clear that both agencies must cooperate with the ANC in providing copies of critical plans as soon as they are submitted to DDOT.
Green Eyeshades says
At the June 18th monthly meeting of ANC3F, near the end of a very long meeting, commissioners heard that a Traffic Control Plan does, in fact, exist. However, that Traffic Control Plan may or may not have been submitted to DDOT as ANC3F’s June 4 resolution requires. It also appears that the Traffic Control Plan has not yet been “submitted to the ANC for a short review” as required by that same resolution.
In any event, the ANC3F website still does not show a copy of the Traffic Control Plan for the block of Albemarle between 32nd Street and Connecticut Avenue, and it does not show a copy of DC Water’s application for a construction permit, which was “approved pending payment” by DDOT back on May 23. The terms of ANC3F’s June 4 resolution require both documents to be produced to ANC3F.
Green Eyeshades says
Who used the term “alley access” and what does it mean?
The term “alley access” does not appear in the resolution adopted by ANC3F on June 4.. The resolution requires full and unimpaired “[a]ccess to Albemarle Street from the parking lot” behind those businesses.
Nor is the term “alley access” used on the drawing of the streets at that intersection included in DC Water’s slides presented at the June 4 special meeting of ANC3F. (See page eight of DC Water’s June 4 slides.)
The resolution adopted by ANC3F on Tuesday evening includes several sentences about the businesses located at the southeast corner of Albemarle and Connecticut Avenue.
Stipulation 2 (bottom of first page) includes this sentence:
“Notification of these operations will extend to the Avalon apartment building, Park Van Ness apartment building, Franklin Montessori school, restaurants, other commercial establishments, and offices in the commercial building located on the southeast corner block of Albemarle Street and Connecticut Ave, NW.”
Stipulation 5 (page two of resolution) includes this sentence:
“Access to the parking area behind the commercial stores on the eastern side of Connecticut Ave and south of Albemarle Street by suppliers, owners, staffs, and other deliveries, as well as garbage collection services will be maintained.”
Stipulation 8 is only one sentence, which states as follows:
“Access to Albemarle Street from the parking lot located behind the commercial building referenced in Note 2 [stipulation 2], above, will not be impaired for intermittent use.”